Hermann needs a shot to take Hayes' minutes. Jarvis is going to be a major liability on defense in the post-season (more so than he already is).

Hermann is just more versatile, can shoot the 3, drive to the basket, pass, defend, etc.

Dixon can score, but showed signs of being a chucker. For the most part though i was impressed by his shot selection. Got blown by on defense a few times by some player on the Clips that i couldn't even name.

Nice decisive win with no CB in the lineup. Sheed was blazing hot in the first half, and Tay dominated both by distributing the ball and by taking it to the hole at every opportunity. And Flip managed to remember to put Amir in the game, with positive results.

Even though the Utah loss left a sour taste in everyone's mouth, let's step back and appreciate the fact that they went 3-1 on this tough road trip. Looking at it on the schedule before the All-Star break, I would have optimistically pegged it as a likely 2-2 at best.

AJ a +25. It seems the D goes from matador to lock-down instantly when he steps on the floor.

In other news. Is Flip really going to continue letting Jarvis chuck terrible shots and commit stupid fouls when we clearly have a 6th man caliber SF riding the pine in Walter Herrmann? Shame he's going to walk next year, and we'll never find out how it would have worked out.

Based on how Dixon was shooting it tonight, it might be best to go for a Stuckey/Dixon/Herrmann/Max/AJ bench with a little AA sprinkled in. Seems like a good balance of slashing, shooting, defense, and hustle.

2. Great way to begin the game for Sheed and ended up with a lot of points and a lot of rest. Great D, great way to pound the ball inside and take Powell and the other Clip bigs to school.

3. Great game by Tay. Shows he can be the man when it counts. Dunks, floaters, hooks, jumpers.

4. Rip has to yield when it comes to bringing up the ball. He tries too hard sometimes to take his man off the dribble and make the plays but that's not his best game. Two-chest, roll off those screens, man. Quit trying to force every darn shot. But nice points nonetheless.

5. Dixon was great off the bench. Another weapon. He could always score and shows in this game. Great pick-up for Joe IMO, contrary to a lot of opinions.

6. Amir was a game changer as usual. Hang in there young fella, you'll get your due.

7. Stuckey and Afflalo didn't quite impress me in this game. But you have to love their intensity, and their desire to be out there. They're not called on to be saviors, and play within the flow of the game and do not make silly mistakes often.

8. JMax was great off the boards as well. Jumper not quite where it used to be but I expect him to get it back when his legs catch up.

9. Dice was the only thing sucky in this game and the fact that I don't know what happened to Chauncey. Oh and Jarvis takes 2nd place to Dice as well. Anybody have an idea?

10. Herrmann. Herrmann. Herrmann. Everybody cheers this guy. He brings so much energy on the floor. Must be the hair. He looks funny out there. Out of place but still fits in. And not the most athletic, and I will argue that to anybody who says he's more athletic than Jarvis, but he has moves man. Hehe, you had to love those two drives late in garbage time where he yo-yo'd the ball just hiding it from Clipper hands and laying it in. Twice! Hehe, It looked weird and cool at the same time. And that pass along the baseline was a beauty. HVC=Herrmann. The only difference from Darko is that he actually makes it count.

The plays of the bench were fun and excited. The local commentators praised Stuckey and Amire like no one, the praised JD for Dixon trade, they also called Maxiel as Ben II. Now the team had had a 3-4 road trip to the west, more than expected, but the ugly loss at Utah is still something has to be addressed, we had lost games in way liked coaches were brain dead at court side for so many times in past 3 years and repeated again and again. Shall we can just cross our fingers and pray during playoff games ?

I expected a fun game to watch, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Stuckey started, but had the show stolen by Dixon as far as point guards go. Dixon looked good hitting his first 6 shots, dishing 5 assists too while playing fine D. Sheed started by hitting triples, and then kept working the inside like a fiend. Tay was game MVP with a great double double, 22 points, career high 10 assists. Most of Tay's damage was taking it right to the basket. Rip hit a few shots. Dyess was scoreless, contributed some bounds.

But even with Tay and Sheed on fire tonight, our starters could have lost this game for lack of D. Fortunately though, Flip remembered to play Amir this time, and so we slaughtered the Clips. Amir finally came into the game with 8 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter, and wow, the defense all the sudden, quite mysteriously, held. (Mysterious to Flip only and his supporters. Anyone else can see that Amir is dynamite on D.) The lead began to build. Most of the 3rd quarter was just trading baskets. Then Amir came in at the end, and the lead went up some more. In the end, the team was plus 5 with Amir not in the game, and plus 25 with him in the game. Our defense is that much better when he plays. Sheed had four blocks himself in this one, and it was him and Amir manning the big spots as we started to pull away in the 2nd quarter.

Stuckey scored on a couple of cuts to the basket among his 4 makes. (I missed a portion of the 1st half where he made a couple of shots so I don't know what he did there. I had the game on pause, and then flipped channels - when you do that you come back to live action, missing part of what happened while you had it paused. Oops.)

Hayes made a few shots, one kind of meaninless in garbage time. And they burned him on D a few consecutive times in the first half. My vote for who loses minutes to Dixon is Hayes. Another guy is Hunter, who simply may not be needed down the stretch here after all.

Afflalo hit one shot mid 4th quarter. He did not play in the first half except the last few seconds. Instead, Hayes played a lot and Tay spelled Rip some. Now, I don't mind seeing us doing something different, like playing Tay at shooting guard some, especially since Afflalo did get to play the last 14 minutes of the game. A guy who plays good solid D like that should always be rewarded with more minutes.

Sure. Both of them are very flawed players, but each has different strengths.

I just think it's a huge stretch to call Dixon "solid" based on one impressive game against a lottery team with a horrible backcourt, when you take a glance at his career and see that it's filled with a lot of impressive games and a lot more unimpressive ones. He is what he is - pretty much indistinguishable from every other conscienceless journeyman bench guard in the Association.

And yes, that might make him better than Lindsey Hunter. But "solid" is a lot better than Lindsey Hunter is at this point in his career.

As others here have mentioned, this game was looking like a typical Pistons game (maintaining a small-medium lead) until Amir Johnson came in and we went on a 10-0 run. The pattern is making itself clear. He plays good D, which results in easy O for us when we get blocks, steals, etc. This is why we are seeing so many of these gaudy runs when he is in the game.

Observatios:

Dyess only attempted 1 shot. I noticed that he passed up a completely open jumper from his sweet spot in the 2nd half and then threw it away on a pass. Not sure what the problem was. Maybe b/c Sheed was rolling, he didn't look to score, then wanted to let the young guys get shots later? His D looked a little shaky tonight too. Maybe he has a cold or something.

Tay got to show off a bit without Chauncey.

Sheed was having one of his best games of the year, until he got completely bored and took that horrible lefty shot over the backboard. That was about it for him.

I'm really not basing this on the results, but Dixon's form looks pretty good. Nice compact release without too many moving parts, nice arc, and good rotation. He also seemed surprisingly like a 1, which does not fit his rep as a 1/2.

Herrmann with the razzle dazzle. In only 4:40, he took 4 shots, got fouled, grabbed 3 rebounds, and dished out 2 assists?!?! That is at least 9 touches in a very short period of time. That baseline pass was one of the year's passing lighlights for Det.

Statistical Anamolies:

We made 20 more FG's than they did (44-24). I'm not sure I've ever seen that big of a disparity.

They attempted 34 FT's to our 12. That is also one of the biggest spreads. However, these are correlated, since when we foul them on a shot it gives them free throws and doesn't count as a shot attempts.

Cory Magette got more free throws than our entire squad.

In the 2nd and 4th quarters, the Clippers scored 27 total points. Nice job ZOO CREW! 18 total points if you ignore free throws.

Nice game for "Pistons home/away crowd" as once again it appeared that there were more us with Pistons jerseys/garb there than those with Clipper gear. Of course you heard the "DEEEtriot Basketball chants"", the SHEEED everytime he got the rock,>> even "ball don't lie" was yelled out when Sheed had a bogus foul called on him. There were plenty of oohs and aahs and hollers on JMAX's dunks and attempted dunks, and of course the big cheers when Fabio dazzled the crowd in the end. The Pistons fans without Detroit gear came out of their shell and were there cheering in the second half when it appeared the game was over for the Clippers, as the boys in blue led from start to finish.....

The Clips really miss EB and Livingston....no wonder Sam abandoned them.... Kaman played in his first game in a week after getting an epidural, (no he is not pregnant), but this was supposed to eliminate the back pain.) He started out good but faded after playing the whole first quarter. Cuttino Mobley was a no show and seem to have a stomach cramps midway thru the game. poor Maggete...he got his points but most of them came at the FT line (he has averaged on 10 points at the line the last 11 games). Dunleavy came out of the lockerroom with a scared look on his face and the end of the game he walked off with the same face.

Now back to the Pistons..Tay took over for the missing CB, shouting directions and scoring on jumpers, short pops and runners. He lead the team in points and assists with 22-10, and it appeared that he had something to prove to his relatives friends sprinkled throughout the crowdd. AJ returned to the line-up and provided his relatives and high school friends with a couple of blocks and steller defense as wll as leading the team with rebounds.

Sheed was the catalyst in the beginning scoring 13 points in the first 7.5 mins but only 4 after that. I actually told my wife at halftime that despite Sheeds first half scoring heroics, he would not top 20 and I was right. Those 4 blocks were enouht to frustrate Kaman & Co though.

The bench was impressive tonight. After starting off slow in the 2nd qtr, they finally came around and had the Clipper faithful wondering who they were and yours truly had to provide resume information.

Although Stuckey was OK in his first start, Dixon was a pleasant surprise off the bench leading the zoo crew in scoring and assists. The zoo crew scored 41 points as Dunleavy threw out the white flag with about 5 mins left in the contest>>er actually this was no contest. It was just an excuse for Team Piston to enjoy some sunshine and R & R California and then end it with a nice entertaining scrimmage for the all of the former Detroiters who migrated out here over the last 25 years.

I sat about 4 rows back of the Clippers bench in the corner by the tunnel so I was not able to see what was going on at the Pistons bench down the way, but I can tell you that coach-in-training Lindsey Hunter walked out on the floor with the rest of the coaches on every time out and provided his opinion. If Dixon can play that way vs the C's next week, we might be able to shut down Hunter for good.

Meaningless stats> Pistons scored 52 points in the paint, more than 20+ above their average. They got 28 assists, which translates to 38 games in a row that a game topping 24 assists have resulted into a W ( and no Chauncy>>who needs him any) Pistons are a league best 25-1 when scoring 100+ points.

Time to get some rest now, got to get up and drive to Vegas in the morning. I will check my photos and if any are decent I will upload when I return Tuesday....

No. Sure. Both of them are very flawed players, but each has different strengths.

I just think it's a huge stretch to call Dixon "solid" based on one impressive game against a lottery team with a horrible backcourt, when you take a glance at his career and see that it's filled with a lot of impressive games and a lot more unimpressive ones. He is what he is - pretty much indistinguishable from every other conscienceless journeyman bench guard in the Association.

And yes, that might make him better than Lindsey Hunter. But "solid" is a lot better than Lindsey Hunter is at this point in his career.

Click to expand...

I suppose Lindsey's defensive strengths could give him the edge in the end. If Dixon is indeed just another conscienceless journeyman bench guard in the Association Lindsey wins hands down. No contest.

games like this show the importance of one of our most un appreciated players... prince is so important to this team with how he just fills in where ever he's needed, 10 assists last night think it was 8 in the first half when the game was still a game.

And AJ is again a gamer, can only go from the online stats to make this judgement but again he seems to be playing better then max, and really is to the point he should be the first big off the bench.

If they keep focus and remember how they have gotten to this point the future looks good.